With Fury and Joshua in talks for a two-fight deal, George Gigney wonders if Usyk will be happy to sit on the sidelines in the meantime.
A LOT can happen in a week, though we can never be sure how much. In last week’s edition, this column reflected on Oleksandr Usyk’s comments about a possible fight with Tyson Fury and floated the idea of ​​Anthony Joshua “resetting” his career from this point.
We now face the prospect of a Fury-Joshua megafight. When Fury posted a video on social media, decked out in various sanctioning body trappings, to call out Joshua, it seemed more like a ploy than anything else. Perhaps an attempt to put pressure on Usyk and his team.
However, we later learned that the people managing Fury and Joshua had been in contact. And that Fury had extended a 60-40 portfolio split offer. And Joshua had agreed to those terms. For seasoned boxing fans, it was somewhat surreal to watch it unfold: fights of this scale aren’t put together that simply.
However, that seems to be the case here as well. Since then, there have been countless reports of date and venue disputes, with Fury even imposing some sort of deadline for Joshua and his team to accept the fight.
We haven’t heard much in recent days and Frank Warren, who works with Fury, told talkSPORT that’s because the two apparently didn’t think it was appropriate to continue negotiations following Her Majesty The Queen’s death.
If that’s the case, it’s a truly strange decision. A Fury-Joshua fight is being scheduled for early December, so if they want to finalize it, they need to act fast. With all due respect, putting negotiations on hold over the death of a monarch makes no sense.
Eddie Hearn, who promotes Joshua, once said that when things go quiet on social media and in the news regarding a big fight like this, it’s usually a sign that negotiations are getting more serious and developing further. . Perhaps that is the case here and explains why the flurry of updates on these conversations ceased so abruptly.
Because we were inundated with reports, some accurate, some less so, about who had offered what and what dates were up for grabs and where this might happen. In fact, it’s been nice not listening to anything because it was getting boring. To be fair, Hearn claimed that he and the Warrens had agreed that they would not speak publicly about some of their discussions, for example the 60/40 split, only for Fury himself to reveal them on social media.
Part of the problem is that the public only sees glimpses of the negotiations, and only through the lens of certain figures. There are so many, many aspects of these conversations that we don’t know about, so the opinions formed are not supported by all the evidence. For example, we’ve heard about the portfolio split, but nothing about broadcast rights, which is a huge hurdle to overcome.
What can be said is that it is a positive sign that these parties, who are so often at odds with each other, are in dialogue. Credit must also go to Joshua himself; according to Hearn, his acceptance of 60/40 and certain dates went against the advice of those around him. ‘AJ’ could have correctly said “thanks, but no thanks” to Fury and focused on rebuilding before a possible matchup next year.
We continue to watch with interest, particularly if Oleksandr Usyk’s ears have been pricked by the news that if Fury-Joshua went ahead with a rematch clause, he could be put on a year freeze. We doubt Team Usyk will allow it.
As we entered the week of the trilogy fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin, both men had been throwing sound bites and quotes about each other. Golovkin said Canelo is “out of touch with reality” because of his point of view on his recent loss to Dmitry Bivol. Canelo himself doubled down on his commitment to stop ‘GGG’ on Saturday and “punish” him for the things he has said.
Actually, it’s nice to see some needle between these two. They are usually respectful of their opponents but there is clearly bad blood between them, which adds an extra layer of intrigue to this third encounter.
transmissions
Sadly, this week’s broadcast discussion is one that never happened. In the wake of the Queen’s death, the excellent Sky Sports bill spearheaded by Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall has been postponed until October 15. The decision was taken out of Sky’s hands, as it was the British Boxing Board of Control that declared there are no fights in Britain. it would take place over the weekend out of respect for Her Majesty.
This was announced on the day of the card, which must have been devastating for the fighters, their teams, and the fans hoping to see them at the O2 in London or on TV.
It was a questionable decision. Other sports, such as cricket and rugby, went ahead as planned, although they included services of respect to the Queen. The Premier League was the most notable competition to cancel all of its matches and reports emerged that part of this decision was that fans could not be trusted to be respectful during moments of silence.
This may or may not have been a Board consideration, but in any case, boxing is very different to the Premier League. Players and staff will continue to be paid even without matches taking place. Clubs like Manchester City even paid their casual staff for the hours they missed.
If boxers don’t fight, they don’t get paid. Neither do their coaches and other members of their teams. It is all very well to show respect for the passing of a monarch who reigned for so long, but canceling sporting events in such a short time seems drastic.
boxing in the box
16 of September
Denzel Bentley-Marcus Morrison
bt sports 1
Coverage begins at 7 pm
September 17
Lyndon Arthur-Walter Gabriel Sequeira
channel 5
to be confirmed
September 18
Canelo Alvarez-Gennadiy Golovkin
DAZN PPV
Coverage starts at 1 am
